Audra McDonald, Lillias White

Dreamgirls in Concert (2001 Concert Cast) Born in Berlin, Germany and raised in Fresno, California, the elder of two daughters, she began to study acting at a young age to counteract her diagnosis as "hyperactive". McDonald graduated from the Roosevelt School of the Arts program within Theodore Roosevelt High School in Fresno.[2] She got her start in acting with Dan Pessano and Good Company Players, beginning in their Junior Company. "I knew I wanted to be involved in theater when: I had my first chance to perform with the Good Company Players Junior Company.", "The people who have had the most impact on my life: Good Company director Dan Pessano and my mother." [3]She studied classical voice as an undergraduate under Ellen Faull at the Juilliard School, graduating in 1993. McDonald became a three-time Tony Award winner by the age of 28 — for her performances in Carousel, Master Class, and Ragtime — placing her alongside Shirley Booth, Gwen Verdon and Zero Mostel by accomplishing this feat within five years. She was nominated for another Tony Award for her performance in Marie Christine before she won her fourth in 2004 for her role in A Raisin in the Sun, placing her in the company of other four-time winning actresses Angela Lansbury, Gwen Verdon and Mary Martin. She reprised her Raisin role for a 2008 television adaptation, earning her a second Emmy Award nomination. Throughout her career McDonald has maintained ties to her classical training and repertoire. In 2005 The Seven Deadly Sins: A Song Cycle was commissioned for and performed by her at Carnegie's Zankel Hall. She sang two solo one-act operas at the Houston Grand Opera in 2006: Francis Poulenc's La Voix Humaine and the world premiere of Michael John LaChiusa's Send (who are you? I love you). In 2007, McDonald starred with Patti LuPone in the Los Angeles Opera production of Kurt Weill's opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny directed by John Doyle. McDonald has also made several television appearances, both musical and dramatic. In 2001, she received her first Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie for the HBO film Wit starring Emma Thompson and directed by Mike Nichols. She also has appeared on Homicide: Life on the Street, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years, the short-lived Mister Sterling, The Bedford Diaries, and Kidnapped, and in the 1999 television remake of Annie as Daddy Warbucks' secretary Miss Farrell. She sang in 2007 with the New York Philharmonic in a concert of music from the movies televised on Live from Lincoln Center by PBS. On the big screen, McDonald has appeared in Best Thief in the World (2004), It Runs in the Family (2003), Cradle Will Rock (1999), The object of My Affection (1998), and Seven Servants by Daryush Shokof which was her film acting debut in (1996). McDonald has recorded four solo albums for Nonesuch Records. Her first, the 1998 Way Back to Paradise, featured songs written by a new generation of musical theatre composers who had achieved varying degrees of prominence in the 1990s, particularly Michael John LaChiusa, Adam Guettel and Jason Robert Brown. Her subsequent albums, How Glory Goes and Happy Songs, have featured more traditional theater and cabaret songs along with some songs by these new composers. Her fourth album, Build a Bridge, features songs from the jazz/pop canon, from composers as diverse as Laura Nyro, Elvis Costello, Nellie McKay, Neil Young, Rufus Wainwright, John Mayer and Randy Newman. She frequently appears in concert and has performed with a number of the most prestigious orchestras world-wide. McDonald married bassist Peter Donovan in 2000. They have one daughter, Zoe Madeline, who was born on February 14th 2001 and who was named after McDonald's Master Class co-star and good friend Zoe Caldwell. Her middle name is another tribute, to Madeline Kahn. McDonald appeared as Lizzie in the Roundabout Theatre Company's 2007 revival of 110 in the Shade, directed by Lonny Price at Studio 54, for which she shared the Drama Desk Award for Best Acress in a Musical with Donna Murphy. In May, while she was in previews for the show, her father was killed when an experimental aircraft he was flying crashed north of Sacramento. McDonald appears as Naomi Bennett, ex-wife of Sam, portrayed by Taye Diggs, in Private Practice, a spinoff of Grey's Anatomy. She replaced Merrin Dungey, who played the role in the series pilot. In September 2008, American musical theatre composer Michael John LaChiusa was quoted in Opera News Online, as working on an adaptation of Bizet's opera Carmen with McDonald in mind.[4] McDonald won two Grammy Awards, along with Patti Lupone, for Best Opera Recording and Best Classical Album on February 8, 2009 for the recording of the Los Angeles Opera production of Kurt Weill's opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, according to the Grammy.com Web site. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.